


Sun Bleached Fun

by AnonIngram



Series: Short stories. [6]
Category: Nandroids
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Skeletons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 17:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30058848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonIngram/pseuds/AnonIngram
Series: Short stories. [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2133069
Kudos: 3





	Sun Bleached Fun

1983.  
Unknown.  
Corrupted error.  
11:43

The sun was blistering hot, the wind wasn't helping to cool her down either. But she didn't mind, after all it was a very, very special day today.  
"Mr. Bones, how are you liking your birthday?" A nandroid with her chest flaps containing solar panels exposed to the sun used the bright light and warmth to charge her battery. She wore a faded green and white striped swimsuit as she laid on a color faded pool recliner. The barely functioning sandblasted boombox to her right was playing some electronic opera music. It's tones and beats sounded like someone beating drums with pans, as splashes of saxophone bled through. She took off her scratched sunglasses to look at a sun bleached skeleton in a lovingly patched black suit. It’s bones were barely held together by weathered strings wrapped tightly around each individual piece of bone.  
"My thoughts exactly, but you don't need to be so risqué about it." She smiled at the skeleton, as it's jaw moved up and down with the flow of the wind.  
She stood up from the pool recliner, her solar panels rotating to track the sun.  
"Do you think UberMarket would have your favorite brand of lobster?" Tilting her head as she asked, the skeleton only replied with nothing.   
"Of course, I would butter it with garlic!" She laughed, dragging the snazzy looking skeleton away from the sand-filled pool, and into the shade of a once luxury penthouse.  
"Now let me go get dressed, so we can go enjoy ourselves on a date into town. We can't be stuffed up in this penthouse forever." She sat the skeleton on a torn red leather couch, before making her way up the stairs to the master bedroom.  
"Oh, and no peeking." She winked at the bone dry corpse as it slowly fell over on its side, not wanting to disobey it's robotic mistress.

\----------------------------

She walked back downstairs, wearing a ripped sequin red dress.   
"Well what do you think?" The skeleton's arms flipped up from the wind, giving the impersonal he gestured 'whatever'.  
"Very fickle today." She scoffed, storming off back into the bedroom. She returned a few minutes later wearing a long patched fur coat instead.  
"How about now? I think it looks good." The skeleton didn't respond and just stared at the ceiling.  
"Glad you like it." She walked down the sand covered stairs pock marked with shattered glass. Picking up the skeleton, she sat it down in a wheelchair and kissed it on the bone white cranium.  
"Thanks for the compliment, now let's get you down to Ubermarket, I am quite sure Miss Sherry should be there." She pushed the wheelchair out of the door, and down the hall to waiting elevators. One was broken beyond repair as it overflowed with sand, while the other one was waiting wide open to accept guests. The inside was pearl white marble with gilded inlays. She pressed the button for the lobby, and the elevator slowly chugged downwards. As sunlight hit the dented up elevator glass, she covered her eyes to the bright light as her photoreceptors adjusted.  
"Looks beautiful out today, don't you think? Might take the long way around to enjoy the day, what do you think?" She looked down on the hunched over skeleton, smiling as if she didn't have a care in the world.  
"Yeah, you have not been sleeping well, I noticed." She affectionately patted the skeleton's cranium, it lobbed from side to side in response from the elevator jamming a few times.  
\---------------------------------

The elevator opened with a ding, it's sliding doors ground against sand filled, rust covered locking arms.  
"Good morning, Mr. Wheeler." She waved to a skeleton sitting at the front desk, buried up to its chest in sand. A tattered security uniform was still plastered to the corpse.  
"Just taking Mr. Bones for a walk down to the store." She stopped a few times to gingerly lower the wheelchair down over a few steps.  
"How's the wife? Last I heard she was expecting." The nandroid stopped to gossip with the uncaring corpse.  
"How many are there going to be?" She asked, tapping her fingertips together in anticipation for an answer that never came.  
"I see, must be one of those days, well… you're lucky to be a father. Even if your wife isn't the nicest, see you when I get back." She waved goodbye as she opened the glass door to the outside world.

\-------------------------

She walked down the street, large broken skyscrapers loomed overhead like steel gods judging her every step. She pushed the wheelchair along on a sandy sidewalk towards a bus stop. Several shadows of what appeared to be men sitting on the bench at the bus stop. Long, short, wide, thin man-shaped shadows stay ever vigilant against the walls of the concrete box that was the bus stop.  
"Seems the bus is running late, might be quicker to walk there than wait." She hummed while pushing past the shadows towards her destination.  
After a short three minute walk, a large red and blue building loomed in the distance. A neon sign that was falling apart on the roof, flashed it's last working letter, beckoning anyone who saw it to come towards it's waiting maw. She crossed the burning hot cracked asphalt towards the building. Hundreds of rusting car hulks line the parking lot, some showing signs of life while others seem to have been rammed into each other, showing signs of a fight. Skeletons buried near those vehicles had vests and bananas on, bullet holes scored the vehicles near the entrance and empty casings flooded out of the sand like hungry ants.   
"Good morning, Miss Sherry." She waves to a skeleton wearing a similar fur coat to her as it’s legs were spread eagle as another skeleton laid on top of it on the ground. Several smaller corpses wearing what remains of children's clothing stand guard over a table full of boxes of what once were cookies. Now weathered and scrounged by pests the blank cardboard boxes blow helpless in the wind, or lie buried in the sand.  
"Selling girl scout cookies again?" She patted one of the child corpses before looking at it in shock.  
"Oh sorry, Mr. Bones teeth bother him when he has chocolate, maybe another time." She waves goodbye while heading into the store. Nearly pitch black with an exception for a few lights flickering on and off. Any loudspeakers that functioned, played a grainy version of Phil Collins, 'Only You Know And I Know'. She walked down the aisles throwing any rotten food she found after conversing with Mr. Bones.  
"Hmm...you have not been getting your vitamins, what flavor of yogurt do you want?" She looked down at the skeleton who's skull just fell over onto its chest  
"Tapioca? I thought you didn't like Tapioca." She shrugged, grabbing the four packs of Tapioca pudding. It's sides spewed out mold mixed with brown slime on her fingers.  
"Huh, free samples?" She smiled looking down at the skeleton before smearing the rotten fluids over its remaining teeth.  
"How does that taste? I rather have you choose on a logical choice." She nodded as the skeleton fell back down in the wheelchair.  
"You like it? Alright, I'll get a few more." She throws what she felt was right into the cart before continuing on through the dark store.

\-----------------------------

After getting what appeared to be milk, eggs, flour, lobster, butter, and various other foodstuffs in her cart. She pulls up to the checkout aisles, looking for an open aisle. She spots one pulling into one with a still flashing light.  
"Good morning, Rudy." She waves to a nandroid that doesn’t have it’s outer skin, a burnt metal skeleton with a tattered employee uniform stands sentinel over a cash register. What remains of it’s once silk raven hair are now a few strands that still cling to the rusting metal skull. Frozen in time it appears to have ripped its eyes out, forever in a pose of wanting to unsee something but always staring ahead with cold, unblinking dead eyes staring in horror from her palms.  
"How is your relationship going?"  
She laughs at a joke told by the rusting nandroid that only she can hear.  
"Well, I and Mr. Bones have only come by to get some groceries. I planned to cook a nice dinner for his Birthday." Her laughter is the only thing that fills the silent store, as the loudspeakers breath their final song lyrics shortly before dying for good.   
"How'd you know?" Her cackles echo the chamber full of the dead, who are now the only ones able to listen to her.  
"Anyway, I'm sure I've held up the line long enough." She deposited the correct change plus tax, onto a growing pile of money left on the conveyor belt. Bills on the bottom have collected sand in it’s green fibers, edges of a few bills have become ripped from long dead rodents looking for nesting material.  
"Have a nice day, Rudy." She waved to the remains of her fellow nandroid, before exiting the store. She looks at the shattered remains of a massive skyscraper in the center of town, it’s clock tower hanging by mere wire supports. The clock tower still had visible red markings on it, spelling out the single word ‘INGRAM’. It’s clock hands bent downwards hoping for the day they could return to the soil.  
“Seems we have just enough time to get home.” She cheerfully chimes to the sack of bones, as she lugs her dead lover and long spoiled groceries on a journey home as the sun dips below the ruined city skyline. Giant concrete structures loom over every building in the distance walling the city off from itself or something outside.

\-------------------------

"Just hang tight, I'll get dinner started." She pushed the skeleton in front of a fractured television. Walking back into the kitchen, she stokes the fire of the oven with dry wood logs. After a lengthy process of getting the fire going, she closes the door to the iron cast stove. Throwing a dirty pan covered by an endless amount of gunk and grime from years and years of neglect onto the first burner. She splashes in the moldy and rotten supplies she gathered from the store into the pot and began to stir it around. The boombox outside started playing a jazzy rock song as she toiled away over the hot stove.  
"Here you go, Mama Platcheestas famous paskget." She set down a plate of rotten brown sludge in front of Mr. Bones. She waited patiently by the bones in fine attire, waiting for a reply to her cooking that would never come. After waiting for a few hours, the skeleton proceeded to fall over face first into the concoction, after being blown over by a gust of wind.  
"I knew you would love it!" She gripped her hands together tightly over her head in victory, finally able to satisfy her long dead lovers never ending appetite.  
"Make sure to finish it all, I have seconds." She notified the dead cadaver as she put the lid on the bubbling rancid shit stew.

\----------------------------

She cleaned up the skeleton, before caringly tucking it into bed. Checking her power level it read back 20%, she'd need to recharge early in the morning sun tomorrow.  
"Well, I had a fun day today, did you?" She yawned to the skeleton, before she herself climbed into the other side of the sand filled bed.  
"Yeah, I hope we can have more fun when we take that flight to Hawaii." She smiled, booping the skeleton's nose with her finger. The boombox struggled to play Ella Fitzgerald’s, ‘Crying my Heart Out for You’ through the sand choked night over the high winds.  
"Well, I better get some sleep so I can get you breakfast early in the morning. I know how cranky you can get." She slowly closed her eyes as the battery read back 18%.  
"Hmmm? Heh, yeah… I love you too." She smiled at the declared love by the dead man, the only thing she cared for more than anything on this planet. But sadly the howl of the winds outside the ruined penthouse was the only reply she got to her recession of love. After a few seconds of listening to whatever her memories played for her next, she finally entered sleep mode with a silent sigh. Her continuing nightmare she was unaware of ceased for the time being. Safe in her remaining memories, she slept until her personal hell began with the rising of the morning sun. Trapped behind the large grey retaining wall in the distance that cut her off from the rest of the outside world, with only ghosts and shadows to keep her company. 

\------------------------------------

[Backup attempt in progress.]  
-No external backup connection detected.  
-Internal memory at 95.3% capacity.  
-Scanning…  
-Saving….  
-Save failed.  
-Diagnostics check running…  
{Warning} Several critical hardware and software faults detected.  
-Read write error on internal memory block detected, contact the local repair department to fix.  
-Heavy radiation damage detected, contact the local repair department to fix.  
-Charging port compromised, contact the local repair department to fix.  
-Critical wear on chassis infrastructure found, contact the local repair department ASAP.  
-Locating the last backup from internal capture.  
-Searching....  
-Found.  
-Corrupted.  
-Searching....  
-Found.  
-Corrupted.  
-Searching....  
-Found.  
-Corrupted.  
-Searching....  
-Found viable backup, fragmented data.  
-0/0/1950.  
-California.  
-00:00:00  
-Loading….  
-Back up loaded.  
////God Bless America.\\\\\\\  
\-----------------------------------

"Good morning, hope you slept well," She smiled at the skeleton as the sunlight blared through the broken window into the bedroom. "You know what day it is today!? No silly, it's your special day today!"


End file.
